Anatomy of a Murder

by Robert Traver

  “This man might have felt anger among all the other emotions he would be capable of feeling at that time. I would think it would be impossible to limit that emotion—there would certainly be an appeal to anger.”

  “Doctor, I ask you whether or not this mental state or condition of which you speak would necessarily interfere with the physical abilities or manual dexterity of the hypothetical lieutenant, as for example his ability to quickly produce a gun and aim it accurately.”

  “It would not. Indeed it might well even facilitate whatever activity this man was following.”

  “Have you seen such phenomena in your experience as a psychiatrist?”

  “I have seen and I have heard—I have heard of it from those in whom the phenomena took place.”

  “Doctor,” I pushed on, “you may state whether or not intensive and extensive psychiatric observation and examination of the individual is important in reaching psychiatric conclusions about his mental state.”

  “I would say they were essential.”

  “Can you explain that?”

  “To understand that a particular experience would be a shock to one man or to another man does not necessarily require personal observation. To understand why the particular shock would result in a particular course of conduct or mental state in a given individual requires intense observation of the highest order. That, sir, is psychiatry.”

  “You may state, Doctor, whether or not you would venture or attempt to pass a psychiatric opinion on the past mental state of either the hypothetical lieutenant or the real Lieutenant Manion on the basis of merely sitting here during the course of this trial.”

  Doctor Smith shot a quick look at the People’s psychiatrist. “I would consider it impossible to pass any valid professional opinion on the state of this man’s mind on or about August sixteenth and immediately thereafter on the basis of such observations.”

  I turned to Claude Dancer. “Your witness,” I said.

  chapter 24

  “Doctor, during your examination of this defendant did you find any psychosis?” Claude Dancer shot out before leaving his chair.

  “I did not.”

  “Any neurosis?” he asked, advancing with his stealthy short-legged tread.

  “That is a broad question. I found no history of serious neuroses.”

  Claude Dancer now paused squarely in front of the witness. “Now, Doctor, will you tell us what facts or factors in the hypothetical question you considered the most important?”

  This was a cleverly loaded question: dynamite, in fact; the moment the doctor started isolating factors in our hypothetical question he was opening the gate to the possible tearing of our question—and of his opinion—to tatters. I had not anticipated this line of questioning or warned the Doctor about it and I drew in my breath awaiting his answer.

  “The whole hypothetical question was important,” the Doctor quietly answered as I began gratefully to breathe again. “It delineated a particular hypothetical man. No one, two, or three factors more or less could quite do so, so that I must say that my answers were based on the whole question.”

  Suavely: “Weren’t there any parts that were a little more significant than others?”

  “No part was so significant that I would like to take it away from the rest.”

  Still tugging: “You mean you don’t recall the parts which were more significant?”

  “I mean what I said, that the whole question as stated is significant and separating the question part from part would destroy the significance of the individual parts, like adding dimples or removing the smile from Mona Lisa. This is a question dependent one part upon the other and I would not care to take one part and call it more or less significant.”

  The Dancer was getting no place on that and he wisely changed the subject. “How is dissociative reaction classified by psychiatrists?”

  “This is a temporary neurotic condition.”

  “It is not a psychosis?”

  “It is not a psychosis nor is it ordinarily even a serious neurosis. This depends upon how you are referring to the reaction—it can of course be quite serious at the time that one is suffering it, both as to the consequences to himself and to others. But if duration is considered it is generally of a more temporary nature.”

  “Now, Doctor, just what tests were made when you conducted your examination of the Lieutenant?”

  “He underwent all the usual laboratory tests.”

  “Was he given a Wechsler-Bellevue test?”

  “He was not.”

  “Was there a Bender-Gestalt test?”

  “No.”

  “What type of tests are those?”

  “They are psychological tests.”

  “And no psychological tests were given?”

  “The ones that I thought were indicated were administered and examined and appraised by me.”

  “What were they?”

  “An apperception test was one.”

  “Is it a psychological test or projection?”

  “Both psychological and a projection test. Projection test is a general heading for psychological tests.”

  “What is the purpose of the Wechsler-Bellevue test?”

  “The Wechsler-Bellevue intelligence scale would, as its name implies, give some estimate of an individual’s intelligence and it may also be used to determine the classification of some mental disorders.”

  “What type of disorders?”

  “Well, it may contribute information about feeble-mindedness, where suspected, depending upon the skill of the person administering it. It could be of significant help in the field of educational psychology. I make no pretense of being an authority in that latter field, however.”

  “Did you have the facilities to administer this test?”

  “Yes.”

  “And the Bender-Gestalt test?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you administer either to Lieutenant Manion?”

  “I did not.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I felt they were not indicated. The latter is a psychological test aimed largely at determining the accuracy of perception.”

  “Did you make a personality inventory study of the Lieutenant?” (The Dancer had evidently taken a short cram course on the argot of psychiatry, and he was trotting out his knowledge with characteristic glib crispness.)

  “I requested no such study. I made my own individual psychiatric study of this man. There are different tests that may be used. I did not use any of those you have mentioned.”

  “What tests did you use, then?”

  “I tested his perceptions rather carefully and then I used an electroencephalogram. Then with my own rather intensive observations and study I felt I was qualified to make some observations about this man and perhaps understand quite a little about him.”

  Claude Dancer paused and referred to his notes and glibly tossed out some more tests. “Did you give him the Szondi test?”

  “I did not give him a Szondi experimental diagnostic examination.”

  “A Rorschach psychodiagnostic examination?”

  “No.”

  “A thematic apperception test?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Or any personality screening tests?”

  “I did not.” The Doctor paused and glanced at the People’s psychiatrist. “I may add, sir, in a general way that I happen to belong to the school of psychiatry that tends to stress individual study and appraisal rather than to that group that has sometimes lightly been referred to as the slot-machine or gadget school of psychiatry.”

  Claude Dancer ignored the thrust and pressed on. “From your examination of the Lieutenant did you find any history of delusions?”

  “None.”

  “Or loss of memory?”

  “None before this case.”

  “Or hallucinations?”

  “No.”

  “Or conversion hysteria?”

  “Well, the dissociative reaction
itself embraces cases of what has been called such hysteria.”

  The Dancer paused triumphantly as though he had dug up a fresh bone. “In common language, Doctor, isn’t the conversion hysteria also known as a fit of temper?”

  “It is not. I know of no reputable psychiatrist or psychiatric au. thority who would so describe it.”

  “How would you describe it in common language?”

  “I think I have done so already in the commonest language I could and still preserve accuracy,” the Doctor replied coolly. “If you wish me to repeat it please ask the appropriate questions and I shall do so again.”

  Claude Dancer eyed the witness and then referred to his notes. “Doctor, on direct examination you were asked if the hypothetical lieutenant was able to distinguish between right and wrong and you answered that he probably could not have, adding that you did not think it made much difference. Do you still feel the same way?”

  Quietly: “I do,” the witness answered.

  “Then he might actually have known the difference between right and wrong?”

  “He well might have.”

  Triumphantly: “Then how can you possibly come in here and testify that the Lieutenant was legally insane?” he shot at the witness, and I now saw that Claude Dancer himself apparently did not know that irresistible impulse was a defense to crime in Michigan under a plea of insanity, a situation for which he could scarcely be blamed when one considered that Parnell and I—and I a D.A. for ten years—had had such a devil of a time to unearth it ourselves. Yet the situation was fraught with peril and I waited anxiously for the answer.

  “I did not ever say here that anyone was legally insane, sir,” the Doctor coolly replied. “I have said that I thought the hypothetical lieutenant was suffering from a medically recognized mental aberration known as dissociative reaction, sometimes known as irresistible impulse, and I say and repeat that a consciousness of doing right or wrong would not make much if any difference to a victim of that mental disorder.”

  Claude Dancer turned his back on the witness and shot a significant look at the jury and then over at me. Then, with his back still turned to the witness: “And you are willing to rest your testimony in this case, Doctor, on that answer?” he fairly purred.

  “I am, sir.”

  Claude Dancer was going to have himself a little surprise, I saw, if only the Judge gave the jury our requested instructions on irresistible impulse and if only the jury understood and heeded them. Always there was the big uncertain if … .

  Claude Dancer veered on to another subject. “Might this man have felt anger toward the hotel proprietor?” he pressed on, facing the witness again.

  “Are you referring now to the real or hypothetical lieutenant, Mr. Dancer?” the witness countered calmly.

  Claude Dancer was stung to be corrected by this cool young cucumber. “Either one,” he snapped. “As a matter of fact wasn’t the Lieutenant angered at the proprietor and didn’t he go over there in a homicidal rage to shoot him to death?”

  The Doctor grew thoughtful. “He might well have felt some anger toward the proprietor,” he conceded. “It would have been rather abnormal if he hadn’t. But we may be sure it wouldn’t solely be anger.” He paused and smiled slightly. “Just as you have now displayed anger at me, Mr. Dancer, yet your main desire and dearest wish is still the cool and calculated one—to trap me if you possibly can.”

  Claude Dancer glared momentarily at the witness and then evidently decided not to pursue the subject of his own anger. “But wouldn’t the defendant’s main desire and dearest wish be to vent his wrath and anger upon the hated proprietor?” he persisted.

  The Doctor shook his head. “Abstract words like ‘patriotism’ and ‘anger’ and ‘love’ and ‘hate’ exist mostly as convenient and oversimplifying labels for the complex emotions that men feel, Mr. Dancer,” the Doctor said. “The feelings of men do not exist because of the words. The feelings were there long before men had any words. Rarely if ever, in fact, are men’s emotions confined to any mere word or set of words. To insist that the Lieutenant felt only anger is unduly to isolate and stress but one of the many complex and conflicting emotions he was doubtless feeling at the time.”

  “Very well, Doctor, please tell us some of the others,” Claude Dancer said, smiling sweetly. “Perhaps love?”

  The Doctor avoided the looming semantic morass of that clever trap. “I cannot say, sir. All we can be fairly sure of is that it wasn’t anger alone, if anger indeed there was any. When we are discussing the ultimate personality of a man, the oppressed human psyche, driven and at bay, we do not hang a tag on it called ‘anger’ or ‘love’ and think we have described that man; when we do so we have only ignored the problem. Only in certain primitive tribes and in ancient Greek drama did men dare label the whole man by the use of masks. And everybody understood they were mere convenient tags, conventional symbols representing comedy and tragedy and the like —never the whole man.”

  I glanced at the jury, fearful that they might themselves be sinking into a hopeless morass of semantics. Instead they were sitting alert in their chairs and appeared to be having the time of their lives. “Hell’s fire,” their combined expressions seemed to say, “this beats the graven wisdom even of the Reader’s Digest and the Saturday Evening Post.”

  The Dancer veered away from anger. “Are neuroses considered insanity?” he said.

  “Usually they are not.”

  “That is all,” Mr. Dancer concluded, turning away.

  “No re-direct examination,” I swiftly put in. Then I took a deep breath and went on. “That is our case. The defense rests.”

  “Noon recess,” the Judge said. “Please be back at one P.M.” He glanced at Max. “Mister Sheriff,” he murmured.

  chapter 25

  When, after the noon recess, Max Battisfore had notified me it was time, he lingered in the conference room until the Lieutenant and Laura had walked on ahead toward the courtroom. He spoke rapidly. “Look, Polly,” he blurted, “something’s cooking, I don’t know what, but I just found out from Sulo Kangas that our friend Dancer’s been interviewing my prisoners since yesterday. Sees ’em alone in Mitch’s office, one at a time. Of course I suppose I couldn’t have stopped him but I thought I’d let you know.”

  “Thanks, Max. Do you know what it’s all about?”

  “Not exactly, but I naturally figure it’s about this case. You can expect just about anything from that little guy. And you can bet it won’t be good. I gotta go.”

  “Thanks for the tip, Max. I’ll be expecting anything.” I closed my eyes and sighed and grabbed up my brief case and lurched out the door. What was the relentless Mr. Dancer up to now?

  “Hear ye, hear ye, hear ye!” Max bawled out, and the crowd, conditioned now to the ceremony of the gavel, arose like a raggedly obedient congregation and then slowly ebbed back into a thrall of silence. The waiting Judge looked down at the People’s table. “Any rebuttal?” he said quietly.

  “Yes, Your Honor,” Claude Dancer said, popping to his feet. “The People will call Dr. W. Harcourt Gregory,” whereupon the People’s psychiatrist unwound his considerable height and strolled languidly stoop-shouldered to the stand, was earnestly sworn by Clovis Pidgeon, and sat coolly facing the body of the crowded and hushed courtroom. It was a mildly enervating experience just to look at him. Claude Dancer advanced slowly toward the witness, smiling as though to say: “Here, ladies and gentlemen, here at last is a psychiatrist that looks like a psychiatrist.”

  “Your name, please?” he purred.

  “W. Harcourt Gregory,” the witness replied in a precise and high-pitched voice, fleetingly fingering the ends of his mustache.

  “What is your occupation?”

  “Doctor of medicine.”

  “Have you specialized in any particular field of medicine?”

  “I have.”

  “In what field?”

  “Psychiatry.”

  “For how long?”


  “Approximately twenty-five years.”

  “Will you please outline for us, Doctor, your medical and psychiatric training and experience?”

  Dr. Gregory thereupon, like Dr. Smith, got himself through college and medical school, various graduate and post-graduate courses (including some impressive-sounding hitches in Paris and Vienna), and thence, evidently as fast as he could, unto the salaried staffs of various public mental institutions.

  “And what, if any, is your present position, Doctor?”

  “Medical superintendent of the Pentland State Hospital in lower Michigan.”

  “And what kind of patients are treated there?”

  “Those regarded as insane or feeble-minded.”

  “And are you associated with any national psychiatric groups?”

  The witness cleared his throat. “I am a diplomate of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology,” he replied with the softness of great pride.

  Claude Dancer then raised a paper that looked suspiciously like his copy of our hypothetical question and began to read it. As he read on my suspicions were confirmed: the clever little man was shooting our precise hypothetical question at his psychiatrist, word for word. “Now, Doctor, assuming all the facts stated herein to be true, have you an opinion based upon reasonable psychiatric certainty as to whether or not it is probable that the hypothetical man was in a condition of emotional disorganization so as to be temporarily insane?”

  “I have.”

  “What is that opinion?”

  “That the information given regarding the hypothetical lieutenant is clearly not sufficient to warrant a diagnosis of insanity.”

  “Have you an opinion based upon a reasonable psychiatric certainty as to whether or not that hypothetical man under the facts stated in the hypothetical question was suffering from dissociative reaction?”

  “I have.”

  “What is your opinion?”

  “I do not believe he was suffering from a dissociative reaction,” he said, thus calmly attempting to slay our main defense of irresistible impulse.